Fragments

8.0

8.0

It's still snowing outside when someone knocks at my bedroom door. I had been sitting at the window, watching the snow fall softly among the trees beside the school - it was the only thing I could do to quiet my mind for a little while.

Sasha greets me when I open the door.

"Hey, Piper. Can I talk to you about something?" She's dressed the same as me in her Elizabeth Roe uniform, even though class ended hours ago. Her cut looks better, reduced to a small line on her lower lip.

"Sure." I move aside to let her into my room and shut my door. Somewhere between earlier and now I had decided that I like Sasha. Even though I didn't really want company, I didn't mind as much with her. So far she had filled our time together with words and I was content with not having to say much.

She looks around, her eyes taking in my room. "You didn't decorate your room," she deadpans. "Did you not bring anything with you from home?"

I shake my head. "Not a lot I wanted to take."

Sasha sits on the edge of my bed and touches the standard comforter the bed came with. Her fingers grasp the fabric tightly and suddenly, as if she were burned, she lets go. She looks up at me, her perfect eyebrows raised.

"Is this what I think it is?"

I don't respond.

"Piper, is this blanket the school gave you when you came here? Have you been using this?"

I avoid her stare and lean against the window frame, watching the darkness outside.

"This blanket has been used by like, fifty Roe students." Out of the corner of my eye I watch her strip it from my bed and hold it up in front of her to inspect. "Why didn't you bring your bed from home?"

"I didn't have much time to get my things together," I admit. "And my mom packed for me anyway. They didn't tell us about their shit beds."

Sasha stands up with a tiny smile and starts folding my blanket back onto my bed. "I will not stand for this, Piper. After Christmas we are going shopping and finding you blankets that aren't stained."

I move my gaze from her to the window. Outside, three boys are walking beside the big Oak trees, huddled in their sweaters from the cold.

"First of all, you're standing." I say. Promptly Sasha sits back down on my bed and I laugh. "And second, there's no stains."

Sasha holds up a corner of the bed and flips it over to reveal the brown stain underneath. It's small, but it's there.

"Okay, fine. But please don't tell me what it is. I don't wanna know."

She smiles and leans forward to look outside. "Who's out playing in the snow?"

The boys have stopped among the trees. In the faded light from the school, I can barely make out his face.

"Adam," I sigh.

We watch them talking in a circle for a few moments, and then suddenly everything changes. Adam hits the one guy in front of him and prepares for the second guy to come at him. With no doubt I know it's the two from earlier. He's going to beat the shit out of them.

"Lovely," Sasha says, smirking as she closes my curtains. "Anyways, I wanted to talk to you about something."

I'm tempted to open the curtains to see what's going on outside but then something clicks into my head. Not my problem.

"That Lionel guy, what happened with him?"

Her question catches me off guard. I stare at her openmouthed, unprepared to give her some kind of response. This isn't where I thought this conversation was going, especially with someone I just met.

"I know it's a hard question to answer," she says with a soft smile. "Do you tell the truth and see if they believe you? Do you lie and pretend nothing happened?" She shakes her head. "You don't have to give me an answer," she continues, slowly and quietly, "but I want you to know why I'm asking." She stares into her lap where she places her clasped hands neatly. Moments tick by in silence, marked by the pounding beat of my heart. It's the only thing I can hear. I'm in the thirties when she finally raises her eyes to meet mine. Tears sit gently in her eyes. "I'm asking you what happened because last year, I think the same thing happened to me."

Outside, a yell breaks us from our staring contest. Sasha pulls aside the curtain and gasps at the scene outside. I stand up and put my face close to the window. Close enough that I can feel the cold from outside, like winter itself is breathing on me. Even with minimal light, it's easy to see the blood on the snow. It's so dark in comparison to the perfect white blanket that covers the ground.

One of the guys is lying facedown in the snow.

"Shit." I don't grab my coat as I rush for the door - there's not time. "I need to go stop him."

Behind me, Sasha shuts my door and we run down the hall, taking the stairs to the lobby as quickly as we can in our stupid, short navy skirts. It doesn't take us long to get into the midst of the blizzard, but once there, we have to sift through fresh snow to get to the side courtyard where the fight is taking place.

The whole way there neither of us speaks about what was said in my room.

When I rush around the corner I find Adam sitting on the conscious guy, his friend still lying a few feet away, unmoving. Adam raises his arm back, ready to punch his second target.

"Adam!" He looks up at me and I take the moment to run towards him and shove him backwards. My cold hands grasp his blazer as I throw him into the snow. His eyes widen in shock at me, and for a second, I think he may push me back. When he calms down a bit I wipe blood onto my skirt and examine my hands. His clothes stained them red. "What happened to not being bad?" I ask.

"Hey!"

I look over my shoulder to find Sasha shoving the guy who Adam was going to punch, his face already bloody with a broken nose.

"Are you stupid? She's trying to keep you alive, dumbass." She pushes him again, a little gentler this time. "Go check on your friend, unless you want to end up like him."

"Piper, they started it, I swear."

With all the action over, the adrenaline starts to fade from my veins, leaving me open to the bite of the cold. I wrap my arms around me and try to ignore the sting of the blowing snow on legs.

"You just beat the shit out of two people. I don't think the school is going to find your defense very satisfactory, Adam."

He shakes his head and spits blood into the snow. "If you heard what they were saying...You don't deserve that. They don't deserve to even talk about you." He rubs his jaw with his hand and I see a bruise starting to form. "I couldn't just ignore it."

"Well, maybe you should have," Sasha says, gesturing behind her. I follow to see flashlights coming around the corner of the school. Their lights search the snow, landing first on the blood. Elizabeth Roe staff guide the light next into our eyes, blinding us at the crime scene, however it's quickly gone to a more shocking place. They gasp. Light follows the blood all the way to the guy with the broken nose, crouching gingerly above his friend, lying face down in the snow.